Competências organizacionais e sua relação com vantagem competitiva : um estudo de caso na Faculdade da Serra Gaúcha

Abstract

The constant changes that take place in the economic, social and financial dimensions require from the organizations agile and unique actions in the search for a competitive advantage. In this context, the company should be able to interrelate dynamically organizational competences and competitive strategy. This study aims to identify and evaluate organizational competences, the involvement of middle management and their relationship to the competitive advantage of the Faculdade da Serra Gaúcha (FSG), the largest college of Rio Grande Sul in number of students in the year 2014, as shown by the Census of Higher Education by Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP). The importance of this study is justified by the increase in the number of Higher Education Institutions in Brazil, which has created a highly competitive environment in which good management practices are essential to ensure the level of quality in the teaching offered, as well as gaining competitive advantage of institutions. It may be noticed that despite the recent growth in enrollment in Higher Education Institutions, Brazil is still below the goals set in the National Education Plan (PNE). The theoretical framework presents a historical approach to the concept of competence, its dimensions and aspects, as well as explores the concept of competitive advantage, its relationship with organizational competences and the involvement of middle management. The research consisted of a mixture study, which uses as a method, the case study with two distinct stages: the first qualitative, through interviews with four directors, and the second stage, quantitative in which a questionnaire was sent to 114 managers intermediate level, respectively, six supervisors and 28 coordinators of administrative areas, 22 engineers and 58 members of Structuring Teacher Nuclei from undergraduate courses, representing all managers at this level at the FSG. Among the main results are: the identification of the three main organizational competences of FSG in senior management's perception and the consensus from middle management as competitive advantage conferred to FSG through these, which corroborates with the understanding that the consensus among members of the middle management in relation to organizational competences are intrinsically linked to the outstanding performance of the institution. It was further found that despite the consensus regarding the competitive advantage generation potential, the robustness of these organizational competences is low or moderate, which would indicate the existence of certain amount of risk when it comes to its durability under the influence of external variables such as technological, economic, political and or social changes.